This is a lovely pea! Even the flowers,which we expected to be white like regular peas, are a beautiful purple and mauve combination. You can eat the peas as snow peas, but you MUST pick them when they are young and completely flat. As soon as they start to show any swelling of the peas the pod gets fibrous. After that, wait until they dry on the vine, shell them and use for soup peas. My children LOVED them because the young pods were not only tasty, but they were blue -- actually turning their tongues bluish-purple. This is, of course, a much better to get that excitement than with artificial coloring.